Diary of an Arcade Employee

The Dukes Of Hazzard…For The Atari 2600?

Image courtesy of Digital Press.

Until the other day I admit I had no idea that Atari had planned on releasing a game for the 2600 based on the Dukes of Hazzard television series. I happened to stumble upon the game play video below on Youtube.

A little bit of research online informed me that this game almost made it onto the store shelves back in the day, they were actually being burned onto ROM chips but the programmer for the game, Mark Hahn, says the game wasn’t finished which has resulted in the prevalent theory being that Atari decided to go ahead and ship the games out to cash in on the popularity of the show but changed their mind at the last moment.

It seems the goal was for the Duke boys to drive the General Lee to the jail before Boss Hogg was able to get his lecherous hands on Daisy Mae Duke, all the while avoiding the likes of Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane and Deputy Sheriff Enos Strate. To be honest looking at the video above it doesn’t look like that bad of a game, I can’t help but love that bridge jump as well.

Mark Hahn also worked on the 2600 port for Pengo as well as the unreleased Elk Attack title. Make sure to visit our friends over at Digital Press if you want to read an interview with Mark about the Dukes of Hazzard game as well as his experiences programming Pengo and Elk Attack.

Searching through the alleys for useful knowledge in the city of Nostalgia. Huge cinema fanatic and sometimes carrier of the flame for the weirding ways of 80s gaming, toys, and television. When his wife lets him he is quite happy sitting in the corner eating buckets of beef jerky.